Are Forums Dead?

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Hi,

This is not meant to be an inflammatory post, but is a serious question.

I've had a forum since 2005, and it's been quite successful in it's niche. But over the last 2 years and last 9 months in particular, it's declined.

Traffic is down, membership has plateaued, adsense revenue is down 70%.

We've had some hacking and server issues that have been resolved. but there is more to it. Something fundamental.

I have a vBulletin developer and an SEO guy checking my site over, to see if we are doing anything wrong.

In the meantime I was doing a bit of general research. It seems many forums are in decline, based on Google updates over the last couple of years.

Many forum owners are spending hundreds of hours fixing up their forums to please Google, all to no avail. (The specifics are all online to be read)

So back to my question. Are Forums dead? Just another Google casualty?

Or are people here still seeming Forum growth in terms of membership, engagement and revenues...

My Forum is very much just a hobby and given that my business keeps me going 80-100 hours a week as it is, I don't really want to invest time and money in trying to revitalise a Forum if Google is intent on burying them...

Your thoughts? Your experiences?